We've been hearing for ages that Palm and PalmSource have been working with RIM on bringing BlackBerry Connect software to the Palm OS. Yet after years of press releases from both companies, we have never actually seen an actual working version. Adrew from Treonauts just caught a glimpse of BlackBerry Connect running on a Treo 650 at 3GSM. Apparently, it works as a plug-in to Palm's VersaMail application, and messages are pushed to the device in the usual BlackBerry style. Palm has previously stated they would be offering the service in early 2006.

Why wait and wonder?

Why wait for BBConnect? And wonder about the BlackBerry service? There are plenty of good push email solutions available for Palm OS, from vendors like Intellisync, Visto and Consilient, to name a few.

Don't want to pay the license fees? Funambol just released their open source push email product for carriers and the enterprisehttp://www.funambol.com/docs/FunambolV3final.pdf. They claim their core sync technology (previously called Sync4J) has averaged 23,000 downloads a month, making it "the worldâ€™s most popular open source project."

Works great on Palm OS devices. In fact, if I'm not mistaken it works with (literally) a half billion devices that support SyncML.

RE: Why wait and wonder?

I dig open source and use a lot of open source software myself - but for IT @ most companies it probably makes sense from a support perspective to go with BB. Most companies will pay the $$$ just to have the security of using a 'standard' solution; BB is the standard in this space at the moment. Visto, etc are not getting anywhere yet, but MS will of course with the new exchange push feature - the biggest threat to BB dominance.

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